


A Billion Seconds

by hanihyunsu



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), America/England Feels (Hetalia), Angst, Author Is Sleep Deprived, Brotherly Love, Death, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, England (Country), FACE Family, Family Feels, Fear of Death, Future Character Death, Gen, Hetalia Countries Using Human Names, Hope, Hurt No Comfort, Immortality, Light Angst, M/M, Memories, Minor England/France (Hetalia), Mortality, One Shot, Parent-Child Relationship, References to Depression, Sad, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-03
Updated: 2019-05-03
Packaged: 2020-02-16 11:00:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18690154
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hanihyunsu/pseuds/hanihyunsu
Summary: At the beginning, Arthur had always been right. I shouldn't be friends with a mortal man as I shouldn't be friends with colorful insects. Both are venomous enough to cause massive amounts of pain.And I try not to think about that when I catch his emerald green eyes glance over me.//Arthur is dying.//





	A Billion Seconds

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback is always appreciated! (•ө•)♡

Summer afternoons, sparkling glass vases and open windows.

He was the type to sit around all day, by his window holding a quill and a bunch of his mail on his lap. I would watch from the couch how he sorted through the letters and wrote his replies on the spot, how his wrists bend at the joint from writing his perfect cursive and how his lips never let his cigarette fall from his mouth.

And I was always the type to visit him every Saturday, simply to watch him write letters while I read the news and chew on his freshly baked biscuits. Other times, I would step out to his backyard and talk to the horses we both considered our friends over time. Not to mention his well-grown garden, filled with flowers that were loved more than I ever was my entire life.

Matthew will always offer to drive me to "his dearest" Uncle Arthur's house, but I would refuse out of my desire to have Artie's attention all to myselfーwhich wasn't much, considering we rarely even talk when I was there. It was the odd comfort we relish onー knowing someone was simply there by the living room doing nothingーthat we both signed up for, and that exactly we got.

The mighty United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the country Arthur loved more than anything, had changed. And due to this change, Arthur fell ill. He was replaced by a younger personification for his beloved country and so he was only known as Arthur Kirkland now, the man who lost everything.

I took him in to my country and I grew concerned for the scarce amount of protest I received from him by letting him live inside my country and trash his citizenship for the rest of his life. His house, a mansion of white and gold, was once one of my many resthouses. I could live without one as long as the United States is fluorishing and so I gave it to him freely as his new estate. In less than a month, it already smelled like him. That's why I like spending my weekends here. It felt like home.

Just from parking my car near his fountain in the front yard, I could already smell the baking coming from the kitchen. It was an unspoken pattern that I arrive at 9:30 in the mornings, which he probably noticed before I could. When I step in the door and in a silent agreement didn't bother to knock, there was already a plate of cookies on the coffee table with a cup of coffee that he protested in making or not. Nonetheless, even if it was odd-tasting other times, it was the thought that counts.

I'd sit at the vintage couch, dated back to the 1960's with its pattern and carvings. I bought it myself. Depending on the season, I'd either get a roll of newspaper on his table or a magazine I brought myself and read it for the first few minutes. Most times, I didn't even bother feigning my reading. I outright stared at him by the windowseat and sipped my coffee like a crazy psychopath staring at his victim. However, it wasn't anything like that. It was just odd seeing Arthur slowly lose his personality. It was a horror novel slowly writing itself in the depths of my heart; we both knew it was happening but mentioning it would be pointless. It was inevitable either way.

Sure, there was still the tea. The books, the gardening, the embroidery, the rifles hanging at the walls, the old-fashioned quillsーevery little thing that made him Arthur was still there. Although there was still the horror of losing yourself even if you are surrounded by things that made you...you.

Arthur is growing older.

It was an odd occurence that was far beyond the simple loss of one's country. It was different from Gilbert's caseーhe remained unaging even if his flag was long destroyed from existence. Arthur, even if his country was still above the waters and his flag remained proud in the sky, had turned mortal. He is now a fleeting identity, another name to be forgotten and remembered in the sea of men. He wasn't like us anymore.

And we are all aware of it.

His house would stay silent even if I, one of the admittedly loudest countries ever, was there. He would always be by his favorite windowseat, basking in the morning sunlight doing his usual things. Reading a novel, sipping tea, napping and writing out letters.

God, his letters. I just remembered.

Many of the other countries wrote to Arthur once in a while. Matthew and I would rather visit him ourselves, but the others had no way of ever setting foot in an unsignificant person's house when they had country work to do. And yes, Arthur was reduced to an unsignificant person and it was something all of us silently agreed to never mention.

Those letters, I have observed and discovered, always ended up in his fireplace at the end of the day. He would read it, write a reply to some, and burn it when he thought I was asleep. He didn't even bother watching it burn, he just chucks it in there and goes back to the kitchen to make his midnight tea.

The Arthur I grew to admire values of sentimental things. He was a hoarder of sorts. He even frames some of his lettersーI found some of mine laminated and displayed at his old room along with a few others.

Once again, I never mentioned his letter burning to anyone. Some of the other countries talk about their worries on Arthur's condition, although aside from it, nothing much was new. The reason as to why he burns them remained unknown to me, but for some odd reason I felt like it was plainly obvious and I, being the dense little hero I am, just didn't see it right away.

If he wasn't at the windowseat, he would be at the living room with me. He would cut out random things from the magazines I purposefully left and place it between the pages of his journal slash scrapbook. I would watch as he grabs a bottle of glue and sticks the cut-outs to the pages in an aesthetically pleasing design. He wouldn't say anything as I didn't ask, and I am perfectly content on letting him be. I like to think he did this collage art in front of me in purpose, since there are a million other places in the house he could do his scrapbooking.

And he just chose to do it with me.

It makes me feel special, I admit.

Sometimes, I came to visit him and found Matthew already there. He would have the same set of biscuits and beverage, his of which was a simple lemonade. When he was there, Arthur wouldn't miss preparing my own set of biscuits and coffee and so I felt remembered again.

When Matthew was there, nothing was much different with Arthur. He was still silent, occasionally humming a random melody to himself, and would only speak if he was clarifying something from us. Around afternoons of such occurences, I would drag Matthew outside with me as Arthur took his afternoon nap and we would take the horses on a ride. I always assumed Arthur haven't done so in a while.

Matthew was less informed than me, and so he would sometimes ask if Arthur was still like this and that and the like. We would relive childhood memories of ours, sometimes even pretending to be Arthur and Francis just for funーa funny game we occasionally play ever since we were kids. Arthur would like my impression of him and praise the both of us for our acting talents, but perhaps our acting talents were far too impressive it imprinted itself in our daily lives. I had been acting unbothered for quite a while now.

I don't want Arthur to be gone. I don't want to see the day where I would have to bake the cookies myself when I visit. I don't want to wake up one day realizing I lost the person that made me who I was.

He was losing his sense of family and I do too. Little by little, the unity that we all shared was both breaking and mending, a paradox neither of us would bother figuring out. I know I can't hide behind my smiles and the newspapers forever, but what else is there to do? He was vanishing right before my eyes, fading and fleeting like silk.

I know words have little to no power over anyone's mortality, but it just hurts so much it felt numb. I can't give him back his name, I can't just throw him back to his country. That was all he wanted and there is no one on Earth able to give him that.

Sometimes I'd cry at his staircase as I watched him secretly past the gold railing of the marble steps. His hair would shine in the afternoon sun and if I looked hard enough it was like a halo crowning his head. He'd stare peacefully at his books and on his reflection at his tea, and it was a stare of an angel. No photograph nor portrait could measure the greatness from seeing him in person. He was a magnificent man full of history and determination, and he was losing his strength and making up for it.

I'm always filled with fear when I see him, and I try my best not to act like it. I do not desire to think about him not speaking as much as he used to, I fear that he had already forgot our names. All I ever wanted was to hear another one of his arguments with Francis, but even him cannot strike a chord in Arthur's attention. Not even once.

I've lost a lot and gained much more than what was stolen from me all my life. From the First Families to the people I met, I've created both friends and enemies and harboured hatred which only fueled my country to go on. Good or evil, it was the same thing that a country needs to keep existing. I couldn't imagine losing my name, as I don't imagine losing him.

He was the first person who willingly offered to show the world to me. He taught me everything I needed to know to survive, and looked after me when no one else does. It fills me with buried regret that I had given him hell as a teenager. There was gunfire, the rain and the mud splashing on his glorious red coat as he begged me to stay. We've yelled at each other many times, and I slammed the door to his face. But even after all that, he was still the same man deep inside that would give me the world if he can. And he did exactly what he wanted to do. He gave me the world.

When he stared off at a distance, I always wonder what runs in his head. Would it be memories? Would it be pain? Would it be names? Nobody will know if he doesn't speak. He wasn't alive, he was just existing.

And a part of me finds that comforting enough.

At the beginning, Arthur had always been right. I shouldn't be friends with a mortal man as I shouldn't be friends with colorful insects. Both are venomous enough to cause massive amounts of pain.

And I try not to think about that when I catch his emerald green eyes glance over me. 

**Author's Note:**

> Storytime: I wrote a FrUk Cardverse Hetalia fic, another installation to BTMNB series AND I ACCIDENTALLY DELETED THE 6k long piece and I'm so angry I have to switch to a melodramatic angsty FACE/family UsUk instead of rewriting the FrUk one. 
> 
> Thanks for coming to my ted talk, thanks for reading.


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